2 Soups & “The Sandwich”
Have you ever had a meal that you can’t stop thinking about even months later, or years? I often think very wistfully of those special meals, well, for me it is two very specific soups and one sandwich. Ha-ha!
“The Sandwich”: Hot Honey Peach Prosciutto Sandwich from Mendocino Farms

There’s a Mendocino Farms right by my office. I love their fresh ingredients and seasonal chef creations. Two summers ago they came out with this Hot honey Peach & Prosciutto sandwich that knocked my socks off. Last summer I met the owner, he was trying to entice me to order catering from them for my office (I run food programs and so much more). I explained to him that I am in contract and tied to a budget that couldn’t accommodate their menu pricing. As a lull in the conversation presented itself, I immediately asked about “The Sandwich”! You see, it wasn’t just me that fell in love with this tantalizing dance of seasonal flavors, my colleague and I were both obsessed. They did offer a salad at one point that had some of the key elements, but it just wasn’t the same. We would occasionally mention “The Sandwich” to one another and we ‘d both get that far away, day dreamy look in our eyes,followed by a bowed head of sorrow, knowing we may never get to enjoy it again.
This week my colleague came up to my desk and said, “It’s back!” and we laughed and talked about how often it would be appropriate to order “The Sandwich” without overdoing it and wearing out our obsession with it. He ordered one Tuesday, I had mine last night. As I opened the wrapper I thought it looked smaller than I recalled but I knew it had all the same ingredients so I was stoked! Y’all! “The Sandwich” is still very much “The Sandwich”! It is a little tough to describe but the saltiness of the prosciutto combined with the sweetness of the peaches and the zing from the honey and the crunch of the candied almonds and the peppery arugula, but honestly, the slab of fresh mozzarella is my favorite. It is so delightful I had to stop after the first bite and just relish in the moment. I snapped a pic to share because we all know the advertised pics are rarely accurate. “The Sandwich” is a flavor exploration! It’s crunchy and juicy but not too messy. Needless to say that I was very happy with my dinner choice last night. Ha ha!

Now, I would never consider myself a soup person. I rarely bother to try new soups or seek out soup options at restaurants let alone make them at home. However, there are two very special soups in my life that I will remember until my last breaths. The first being from my very first trip to Seattle in the nineties when my then-boyfriend (now ex-husband) and I went up to see what our options might be if we moved up there. I love Seattle. I had a wonderful friend from the old AOL days who lived there and he showed us around and took us to the now long gone Cafe Minnie’s on Denny Way, near the University. My friend Marc had insisted we try their creamy tomato soup. Sounded basic enough, so we went for it. The soup came with dinner rolls, too. When the soup arrived its aroma was this gorgeous mix of acidic tomato, nutty parmesan, and fresh cracked black peppercorns. When you sink your spoon into the wide bowl, it disappears under the layer of parmesan. The soup was creamy, but also had lovely small chunks of tomato, too. It was rich and unctuously perfect. Oh! The rolls? The server came back with a freshly microwaved bag of wheat dinner rolls from the grocery store and just plopped it in the center of our table. We laughed, it was perfect. When we visited again a year or so later, that soup was number one on our list. It was still so good! I believe it shut down during the second year of the ongoing covid pandemic. (We did not have digital cameras back then so I have no pictures of that glorious soup.)
And now for a legendary tale!
Many years ago my little friend group was at one of our houses near San Francisco and we were looking for dinner options nearby. It was the 1900’s, so we were perusing ye olde yellow pages (that’s in a phone book, the yellow pages were where businesses listed their information and advertisements), when we came across a Polish restaurant in the West Portal neighborhood called Old Krakow. We really didn’t know what to expect, but that night and meal was a bonding experience for our little crew. Old Krakow offered traditional Polish food that was made with love, with offerings of borscht and plenty of meat and potato dishes. I loved their pork cutlets that came with a halved, peeled, and roasted potato. The star of the show was truly something special, though, and not something you would expect to be so delighted by: Creamy mushroom soup. Yep, the humble fungi danced in a bowl of cream and herbs and truly healed us all that night. I mean it, we couldn’t stop talking about it. Though most of us lived about an hour away, we would still gather and make the drive up to the city for this simply divine soup now and then. We even tried to get the recipe from the chef one night when we closed the place and were chatting with the staff, but they only laughed and insisted it was a cherished secret. To this day if one of us mentions that soup we all get that far away look in our eyes, reminiscing our many evenings enjoying that mushroom soup.
Years later, I started a new job in January 2012 for a small candy company. My first day on the job, my boss took me out to lunch. We pulled into this shopping area with lots of little shops and restaurants. We walked into this very small place called Bona. I had never heard of it, but she said I would like it and boy was she right! When I glanced at the menu and saw a creamy mushroom soup I had to at least try it, thinking it could still be good, but it could never be Old Krakow good. When I took the first bite of that mushroom soup, my heart sang! I was in disbelief, I just knew it was the same soup! Now this was about 45 minutes south of SF so there was no way I could have known. In fact Old Krakow had closed some years before this and we never found another Polish place. But this was THE SOUP! I asked the server and they explained that it is the same owner, same chef, same recipes! I called my friends that night after work and told them we had to go! And we did and it was like a family reunion sort of. Haha! We were reunited with our beloved soup! Bona is now gone, too. I have not yet tracked down that chef or former owner to find that soup again, but you just never know!
Yes, there are other meals that were actual meals that were memorable and dazzling in their own ways. In fact, the exact spot where I was reunited with that beloved mushroom soup at Bona, later became a lovely Italian place called Piccolo. There I had my first taste of prosciutto with cantaloupe slices, delightful! But then I had this entree of little bundles/pouches of fresh pasta filled with pear and ricotta in a light gorgonzola sauce: Transcendent! I went back a few times and only ever had those two dishes, they were that good. Now Piccolo is also gone. I was lucky to catch those two restaurants in that little shopping area years ago. I will never forget them.
When I used to work a corporate job and traveled for work, I would often fly up to Portland Oregon, which was my favorite to visit. We had an office in Tigard, just on the outskirts of Portland proper. I would stay at the Phoenix Inn and walk across the street into the business park (Washington Square mal is across the street in the other direction, if you know the area) to the office. In that same parking lot was a Gustav’s. Gustav’s is a German restaurant, family friendly, slightly upscale but not too fancy or fussy. I would sit at the bar and enjoy a blackberry margarita while waiting for my schnitzel order to go. That margarita was so good with fresh blackberry puree and by the time I finished it my food would be ready. So I would walk back to my hotel, a little buzzed, to-go bag in one hand, Marlboro Light in the other, just blissed out as all get out. Ha-ha! Then once in my room I would sit on the second queen sized bed (I didn’t book my own rooms, I don’t know why they always gave me two queens, so I used one for food and one for sleep hahaha) and eat my Schnitzel. Now this was a flattened chicken breast flayed open, like a butterfly, if you will. They laid this gorgeous roasted/pan seared chicken on an equally gorgeously roasted portobello mushroom cap, all laid upon a generous pile of garlic mashed potatoes with big roasted cloves running through it. Every time I visited I followed that same routine, and wouldn’t change a thing. Years later I brought my husband and friends to that Gustav’s, too. There used to be 3 locations in the Portland area. They loved that margarita and the Schnitzel! Now if I mention Gustav’s they go, “Aw! Gustav’s!” in unison. It is a cherished memory.
The last meal that was memorable like this for me is somewhat bittersweet. It was December of 2019, I had just begun to take some solo vacations that fall, and this was my second. I flew into Seattle to visit a friend and check out the Pop Culture museum (formerly the Experience Music Project). After spending a whole day at the museum I wanted something special for dinner. So I cruised around Aurora Ave N in Capitol Hill near where I was staying and came across a little bistro. Now I cannot recall the name, though I am sure I could find it if I was there again, nor really even the specific dishes I had. What I do remember is that it was the end of their happy hour specials and so I ordered a bunch of small plates at a great price and sat in the corner alone in a mostly empty restaurant when it suddenly began to fill up. Each dish was so good and well thought out. The ingredients were fresh and fantastic. I know there was a salad with beets and a lovely steak dish, maybe with chimichurri, and something with a bunch of mushrooms that I delighted in. The tough part was that every time I tasted a new dish I was so blown away that it felt like such a shame to not have anyone to share it with. When I was finished and waiting for my bill, I went to use the restroom but the place was packed by then and I had to squeeze behind already squished together chairs and table configurations. It felt like it took ages, but once back at my table, I finished my cocktail, paid my bill, and walked out and down the street in sheer bliss. I love Seattle. It feels like the nineties there to me. You still see band flyers on telephone poles there. The air is heavier but in a comforting way for me. It just has good energy. I also made a friend via tinder on that same trip, we still text sometimes. Seattle has never done me wrong. I hope to visit again many times in the future. I have not traveled or been on a plane since. Thanks, covid.
Tell me about your most memorable meals or sandwiches and soups! I wanna hear your stories! Sometimes it is fun flavor combos and other times it is the company we keep that makes meals more memorable. It is such a connecting and bonding thing to experience and share. I think it is a part of who we are as a species and how we have survived. When we can let go of judgements, obligations, responsibilities, and just leave the world to be what it is, and just sit down and enjoy something special with someone. It’s magic! When we give our attention and care, and yes even love, to a dish or a moment or a place, we give ourselves the opportunity to feel all that goodness, too. How lovely?!
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I’m here for realness and sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, I’m here for the good and juicy bits of life that shine for me when I know I’m heading in the right direction.
Rad Fatty Love to ALL,
<3
S
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